But I’m happy to say, for the most part, people on both sides are being thoroughly decent, and so far it’s just a small, loud contingent being pricks. Even though CSGV published something about it, and some of their folks had vile reactions, the most highly rated post on their Facebook page exhibited decency:

My sympathy goes out to his family. Male suicide by gun is very common after the age of 45 for men. Power doesn’t come from guns, it comes from being connected to our emotions and accepting feelings like sorrow, depression, fear. Lots of older men need healing.

I’ll forgive the straw man embedded there. It is discouraging to have been going at this so long that the reaction was as predicable as day and night. But it is good to see that outside the usual suspects, people are still able to remain decent human beings.

If by exhibit you mean “put on public display,” I’ll agree with you. Social media has made it possible and acceptable to display really quite vile behavior to passers-by than was even possible prior to its rise; more than a year ago.

If by exhibit you mean “possess,” though, I can’t say I believe that. People are and always have been people, it’s just easier to display publicly and casually a vileness that could be more easily hidden a decade ago.

“People are and always have been people, it’s just easier to display publicly…”

You raise an excellent point.

More than 50 years ago, I remember writing home from Basic Training “[A large percentage] of All-American Boys-Next-Door are Nazis waiting to happen.” That sentiment was based on, how readily the cadre could encourage troops to physically abuse and bully any trainee the cadre didn’t like, and so labeled a “screw-up who is making it bad for everybody/will get you killed in Vietnam.” (I’ve always thanked God I was physically good enough to mostly escape their notice.)

Any time in the past year when I’ve felt shocked, SHOCKED! at anything that has gone on, a little voice reminds me “you knew it ever since you were a kid; but you just spent a half-century pretending things have changed, and that it isn’t true.”

Some of the sites I belonged to in California were nasty as hell. The Facebook page California for Open Carry was particularly nasty. I left a nasty remark, he banned me and removed my post. I sent an e mail to all 1100 people in my California distribution list to unlike his site and leave remarks. THEN, I went on the Calguns forum (Team Leader me)and posted about it. THEN, I went to the CRPA (Life member me)forum and left a message there. THEN, I sent an e mail to the SoCal WOT distribution.

NOW, I feel better! I always say “Our own side who is who we have to worry about MORE than the anti gunners’s.”

Not to mention the social media post that was effectively a suicide note right before it happened, and the fact that his family who commented on it appeared to understand that he struggled with these things for a while. I’d say they have even more evidence and background than the police.

Whenever something like this happens, I would like to have as much information as possible, probably to understand why something like this could happen. It is out of the respect for the family that I curtail any desire to request more information.

Whether the suicide is out of the blue, or it’s something that doesn’t surprise the family, I can only imagine the horror of having lost a loved one under such circumstances…

I first have to offer the disclaimer that whatever hormones are required to make a guy a fanboy, most of mine seem to have declined 30 – 40 years ago. But, of the listed people, Breitbart was the only one I didn’t need reminding, as to who the hell they even were.

But the point of that is, why would anyone delude themselves that those people were so important, that some Great Conspiracy would ever put together complex plots to murder them? Their actual influence on things political (or?) were close to nil; e.g., the embarrassing fact that I have not missed them; whereas, if some Great Conspiracy murdered them and the conspiracy was thus discovered, the impact would be considerable.

Believe it not, us and our issue are not on everyone’s lips, or in their sights, every minute of every day.

I remember Bill Whittle explaining that he wasn’t surprised that Breitbart died the way he did. Whittle was among the friends who constantly tried to get Breitbart to slow down, to turn of his devices, and to take breaks. But Breitbart was too addicted to the constant notifications from his phone, and constantly pushed himself to the limits.

As for the others — it took a moment to remember who Chris Kyle was, but probably because of his “American History in Ten Guns” book that I had read recently. In order for *his* death to be a conspiracy, the conspirators would have had to find a crazy vet who “needed” help. Not impossible, but I’m not entirely sure why Chris Kyle would have been worth the effort, either, however popular the guy may have been….

“Just out of curiosity, why do you reject even the possibility of foul play?”

Personally, I look at most things in terms of percentages. There is a theoretical possibility of almost anything, but the question is, how much of your life do you want to dedicate to something that is say, 0.00001 percent possible? And if you want to go around talking about something that has a minuscule probability of being true, how long before you persuade a few people that it absolutely has to be true?

It is analogous to “JAQing,” i.e., “Just Asking the Question” (and thereby suggesting that something is true, knowing a significant number of people will run with it.)

I don’t have the training to be an actuary (and considering how difficult it is to find time to study, I might never have that training) but I agree: if you’re going to start down the path of alleging that random deaths in the gun rights community are murders, you’d probably do well to start off by showing that these deaths are occurring at a rate faster than the general population.

Even if such a thing can be established, you’ll *next* have to establish whether this is because someone is trying to pick us off, one by one, or if it’s because of other factors — a general zest for life where we might take more risks, for example, or a determination to push ourselves beyond our limits, might equally account for a higher death toll….